one's world is made up of words... and wordless talk

of first impressions...

if one were to record one's first impressions of every person one met and then read it a couple of years later for those people one still is regularly in touch with, it would really be some fun.

i just came across a record of my first impression of a person written 19 months ago in an email to someone, and ... it just reads so funny now ... reading old emails is always fun but this is different.

"chutku. __ seems like a nice guy. met him now. im supposed to be his ta for both courses actually. but he says i should worry about game and envronment he will take care of. only random students may come to me for that too. but basically he needs me to attend game classes keep 3 hrs in the week office hours for that and grade assignments which he will make and give me answers to. the exams he will grade. and the class is small supposedly 18 odd students. and he is sweet. he was stammering just a lil in the beginning before he got comfortable."

and its not easy going on a vacation. especially, if you live alone. preparing to go on a vacation is an art and a strenuous one.

1. think of where you can leave those other leafy inhabitants of your apartment where they can see someone daily watering them even if they are deprived of sunshine cos noone is going to move them around like you do.

2. finish all that pending work cos when you come back there will be much more pending on you before you begin a new semester. all those half read books and papers are going to haunt me this week till I take flight after which they will qualify for that status of "work not done" which stops to arouse guilt by passing into the realm of the past tense. and this does not even include the work that I am being paid for cos that I cannot afford to award wnd status to.

3. clean out your apartment - the kitchen, the bathroom and the entire apartment. so that you are not greeted by pests, dead or alive when you get back home after the holiday.

4. stock yourself with the right amount of food such that the perishable lasts (or is trashed) exactly these few days of hard work, and that there is something to feed on when you're back (cos the bread-milk uncle shop isn't within earshot in this country, actually there is no bread-milk uncle shop here. sigh).

5. and if that's not enough buy a suitcase and plan out exactly how much will fit in so you can buy an exact sized gift for your host.

6. and last but not the least, to prepare yourself for the vacation. stop looking like what you are (a grad student in rags who doesn't care about her looks, until acne sprouts up all over her face) and wax and groom yourself so you feel good while the vacation lasts at least.

7. bear the 42deg heat while you do all this hoping it doesn't kill you before the vacation. and bear that haircut and smile about it.

"An iceberg is water striving to be land; a mountain, especially a Himalaya, especially Everest, is land's attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded flight, the earth mutated - nearly - into air, and become, in the true sense, exalted."

now, isn't that beautiful? for all the Rushdie critics out there (especially those who haven't read much Rushdie) from 'The Satanic Verses'. he sure knows how to tell a story, a winding long magical one, keeping you involved and intertwined in it.